


The Perfect Job

by ambyr



Category: Bel Dame Apocrypha - Kameron Hurley
Genre: Bounty Hunting, Dancing, Gen, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-14
Updated: 2011-12-14
Packaged: 2017-10-27 08:44:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/293875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambyr/pseuds/ambyr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bugs, boy dancers, and beheadings. Just another day of work for Nyxnissa so Dasheem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Perfect Job

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sabrina_il (marina)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marina/gifts).



> Set during the _God's War_ timeskip. Tremendous thanks to Damkianna for the beta.

Hosain was a shitty little dump of a town with barely six streets to rub together, but business had been slow, lately, and Nyx couldn't exactly pick and choose her notes.

"Woman named Tunisi, who runs this dancing house," she'd explained to her crew back in Punjai, "she's suspected of sheltering draft dodgers. Lying on their papers, sometimes helping smuggle them right out of the country. We're there to look for proof. We find it, we bring it back with her head. Got it?"

"How do you suggest we find it?" Rhys asked.

She grinned at him. "Well, figure I've got a dancing boy of my own. Might be he's looking for a job. Might give him a chance to scout around back stage."

Rhys stiffened, as she'd known he would. Oh, this was going to be fun. Almost made up for having to go out to the back of beyond to do the job. "I don't do that sort of dance now."

"What? You're always talking about the dancing you did, back in Chenja."

"Court dancing. Proper dancing." He grimaced. "Not dancing to entertain . . . women."

She'd give her left ovary to know what word he'd thought better of saying--if she still had it, anyway. "Always worth picking up new skills, I say. You'll get to know people, see what you can find. I'll be in the front of the house, taking a look at the crowd, seeing if I spot any suspicious characters. Watching over you. Just think of it as dancing for me."

He folded his arms over his chest.

"Unless you'd rather go back to what you were doing before I hired you on? Got a better offer, maybe?"

Jaw clenched, he ground out, "No."

"A happy team," Nyx said dryly. "That's what I like to see. Anneke, go load the bakkie. You're driving."

* * *

Nyx sent Rhys in first, morning after they drove into Hosain, then sat around playing cards in a dirty motel room with Anneke while she waited for the sun to set.

"Rhys says he got the job," Taite whispered over Nyx's com midway through the afternoon.

"Good to go," she told Anneke.

"Not for another hour, boss, so sit your ass back down and give me time to win my money back."

Nyx dealt another hand. And another. By nightfall, Anneke's pockets were flusher, but Nyx still had enough to get into the dance house, buy a few drinks, and maybe tip a boy or two if she felt fresh. Good enough. She could always dock Anneke's pay later if the woman got too cocky.

Inside, the dance house was exactly what the front had advertised: bare bones, no frills, pounding with music Nyx had heard from the other side of town, such as it was. The whitewash on the walls was peeling, and the bug-secretion stage didn't even have a veneer to hide behind. It had plenty of boys, though, so it wasn't like Nyx was checking for grain patterns. And the whiskey wasn't watered. She tossed back another shot and watched a young thing--maybe twelve, thirteen, still years from the front--twirl and bend, showing the smooth curve of his ass. Made her feel old.

"Too bad you can't be here," she muttered into the com to Taite. "You'd like the show."

The second act was older. Hard to judge if he was draft age or not. Nyx hoped Rhys could find some sort of records. Either way, he was easy on the eyes, and Nyx settled back to enjoy the show. The third act was a girl dressed up as a boy. Some people found that sort of shit titillating. Nyx didn't see the point; she liked her girls girls and her boys boys. And the girl was a thin, leggy thing; pretty enough look for a boy, but what kind of fight could she give in a gym?

The fourth act should have been Rhys, from what he'd passed through Taite that afternoon, but there was no sign of his long legs and black skin. The curtain fell and stayed down; intermission. Time for another drink, but Nyx was worried.

"Any word from Rhys?" she whispered to Taite.

There was a long moment of silence, and then the bug whirred to life. "No. Can't even hear static. Might be stage equipment, interfering."

Nyx swore softly and dropped her empty glass on a table.

"I'm going in," she told Taite. She yanked the beetle out of her ear and squashed it between two fingers before he could protest. His whining would just distract her. Rhys could lecture her about the loss of valuable bugs later, if he were in shape to lecture at all. She heard the zokra start to shriek behind her as she walked out: intermission over.

* * *

The back door was unguarded. Filtered, but the window wasn't. Nyx rapped sharply on the glass. When there was no response, she smashed it with the hilt of her sword and climbed through. The music would be loud enough to drown out the noise. She hoped.

Inside, the drums pounded at her, making her bones vibrate. It was quieter than it had been at the front of the house, but not by much. It made her twitchy; she wouldn't hear anyone coming up behind her. Then again, they wouldn't hear her either.

The first three doors she tried were dressing rooms: depressing places with bare bug-secretion walls and tarnished mirrors with more cracks than her bakkie's rear windshield. The third was an office, empty, but with another door at the back. She gripped her sword and strode through, wrenching it open.

She took in the scene before the door fully cleared: Rhys, bound to a chair, blood trickling down his head from a series of cuts. A woman in front of him--Tunisi, from her greying hair and twisted left leg--holding a knife.

"--what you're here for?" Tunisi demanded.

Fuck finding proof. No one took finding a rat this seriously unless they were hiding something. Before Rhys's one unbruised eye could widen and give her away, Nyx was stepping forward, sword in motion.

Even with the pounding music, something caught Tunisi's attention. She half turned. Meant the sword struck her throat first, not her neck, which was just as well. Easier to cut. Nyx hacked Tunisi's head off in one smooth slice and kicked the body away, clearing the path to Rhys.

"Aren't you going to say 'thank you'?" she asked.

Rhys jerked at his bonds in mute eloquence. It was a pretty picture, but they needed to get out of here before a guard showed up. Luck like this couldn't last forever. She sheathed her sword and made quick work at the ropes with her knife.

"Grab the head," she told Rhys when she finished.

He coughed and tried to stand, wavering slightly. Nyx swore. Must have taken a harder blow to his head than she'd thought. She stooped and grabbed Tunisi's head herself, winding her fingers through the hair, then gave Rhys a shoulder to lean on as he stumbled out of the room.

* * *

"In and out in under a day, and I didn't even get my hands dirty. I thought we'd be stuck in this hellhole all week," Anneke said as she shoved the last of their gear in the bakkie. "Pretty much the perfect job, boss."

"No, it wasn't," Nyx said shortly.

Inside the bakkie, Rhys looked up. His face was crawling with flesh beetles, a writhing skein that struggled to knit his skin back together. A real magician could have done it in minutes, but he had always been shit at that sort of work. A beetle clung to his left brow, partly shielding his eye with one wing, but his gaze was still sharp. Nyx looked away and spat sen.

"Never did get to see him dance," she told Anneke, jerking a nod toward Rhys. She thought Rhys made a sound, but when she looked back, his eyes had vanished under the bugs, leaving his face a blank, unreadable mask.


End file.
